That night the power flickers again, but we don’t light lanterns. We sit by the fire, bowls of stew in our hands, silence stretching between us not because we have nothing to say, but because the quiet feels safe. I tell her small pieces of my clan—my mother’s laugh, the way she used to flour my hands when I tried to steal dough before it was ready, the first time I was trusted to stand guard at the hearth. Clara listens without interruption, her eyes soft, her lips pressed tight like she’s holding the words carefully so they don’t break.
She doesn’t tell me everything about herself, not yet, but she does tell me about her grandmother, about summers when the lodge was full of hikers and laughter, about winters when the pipes froze and they had to heat water on the stove for days. Shetalks about losing her, the way the silence afterward hurt worse than the cold.
I don’t tell her I know that silence. She already knows.
Later, when the fire burns low and the lodge groans again, she looks at me across the room and says, “It’s too cold upstairs. You should stay down here tonight.”
“I’ll take the couch,” I answer.
“There’s one bed,” she says, her voice even but her eyes locked on mine. “We’ll manage.”
The bed is narrow, old quilts piled high, the mattress soft with years. I stretch out on one side, careful to leave space, and she slides in on the other, her back to me, shoulders tense at first. The quilts are heavy, warm, and the sound of her breath fills the room.
We don’t speak. We don’t touch. Not at first.
But sometime in the night, she shifts, and I feel the brush of her hand against my arm, the faint heat of her body closer now. My instinct is to pull her in, to claim what every bone in me screams for, but I don’t. I stay still, and I let her make the move.
When she curls back against me, tucking herself into the hollow of my chest, I breathe in the scent of her hair—woodsmoke and snow and something I’ll never name without sounding like a fool. My arm finds its place around her waist, not pulling, just resting there, and finally, sleep comes without a fight.
In the morning, light filters through the frost-rimed window, pale and cold. She’s still in my arms, her hair tangled, her breathing steady. I don’t move, afraid that if I do, she’ll vanish, and I’ll wake to find the bed empty, the lodge cold again.
She stirs eventually, blinking up at me with a half-smile that doesn’t belong to anyone else. “You’re warm,” she mutters.
“You steal blankets,” I counter.
She laughs, soft, almost shy, and the sound cracks something deep in my chest that I didn’t know was still sealed shut.
We don’t speak of love. We don’t speak of tomorrow. But in the quiet of that morning, with her pressed against me and the snow beginning to melt on the eaves, I know we’ve built something fragile and real, something that doesn’t need contracts or signatures.
For once, I don’t fear that it will break. I only fear that I’ll wake and find it was a dream.
CHAPTER 23
CLARA
The morning after feels too good to be real. There’s a softness in the air, a hush that isn’t just the snow muffling sound, but something that seems to seep into the walls of the lodge itself. I wake with Dralgor’s arm still heavy around me, my cheek pressed to the warmth of his chest, his breathing steady in that deep way of someone who doesn’t often let themselves rest. For a moment, I stay there, not thinking, not planning, just existing in the kind of comfort I thought I’d buried with Gran.
But peace has a way of shattering fast.
By midmorning, the knock comes. Heavy, sharp, and far too official. Dralgor stiffens before he even opens his eyes, and by the time I slide out of bed to grab my robe, his expression has gone from relaxed to carved stone.
When I open the door, Thomas is standing there with a fox’s smile and a roll of parchment under his arm, flanked by two men I don’t recognize. They look like the kind who wear cheap suits to make up for cheaper morals, and the sight of them on my porch makes my stomach sink.
“Well, isn’t this cozy,” Thomas says, his eyes flicking past me into the lodge as if he’s looking for proof of something. “Goodmorning, Clara. I thought it was only right you hear it from me before the clerk posts it to the board.” He taps the parchment. “Countersuit’s been filed. Land rights in Dralgor Veyr’s name, and by extension, his representative’s. Which would be me.”
I stare at him, heat rising in my chest. “You’re out of your mind.”
“Am I? The contracts are murky, sweetheart. You know that. But a judge loves a clean argument, and I’ve got one ready.”
Dralgor appears behind me, bare-chested still, but no less formidable. His eyes lock on Thomas, and the smugness drains a shade from the man’s face. “You don’t represent me,” Dralgor says, his voice low enough that the floorboards seem to take notice.
“You fired me,” Thomas answers smoothly, though his eyes twitch. “But contracts, Dralgor. You signed one back when I came on. Representation clause. I can still act until the court says otherwise.”
I feel my throat tighten. It’s legalese, sure, but I’ve seen enough in my years teaching bratty teenagers how to parse fine print to know he’s not bluffing. He’s twisting truth into a rope, and he means to hang both of us with it.
“Get off my porch,” I snap, shoving the door.
Thomas lets me slam it in his face, but not before his grin flickers back, sharp as an icicle. His voice carries even through the wood. “See you in court, Clara.”
